Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds represents a triad of firsts for me. It is the first Tyler Perry movie I have seen. It is the first time I have intentionally planned to see two separate movies on their opening nights, sequentially. And it is the first time I have stayed up until midnight to see the movie and write the review.

I saw the trailer for this movie when I went to see Red Tails in January, and I was intrigued. I’ve been eagerly anticipating opening night ever since. And talking it up until my family are sick of it.

I wasn’t disappointed. But first, a word of warning. Surprisingly, Good Deeds is not what I would call a family film. I’m not sure I’m going to take my teenage boys to see it — although the great lessons may win out over the questionable scenes in the end. Parents should be aware that there is a good bit of vulgar language, especially in the first half of the film, and that there are both frank discussions of sexuality and a couple of rather intense lovemaking scenes that may not be suitable for younger children. The main character is living with his fiancee, and there is clearly some pre-marital sexual behaviour going on, which may be a negative factor for some of my readers.

That said, Good Deeds is a great story. The basic story is that Wesley Deeds grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth and has the perfect life. Only Wesley isn’t really sure it’s his life, though he has buried these insecurities so deep that he isn’t really aware of them anymore. His fiancee finds him predictable, to the point that she even knows exactly what he’s about to say. Lindsey Wakefield, on the other hand, is living in a nightmare that is slowly getting worse. Her husband was killed while on military deployment, and she had to quit nursing school to get a job and care for her daughter. She is barely making ends meet, and from the first moment that we meet her, we see just how precarious her situation is. And it just keeps unraveling.

Lindsey works as a janitor in the building that Wesley’s company owns. They meet under less than ideal circumstances, and Wesley’s alcoholic brother, Walter, behaves like a lout. We see from the beginning that Wesley has a good heart, but that figuring out the right thing to do can take him some time. Wesley and Lindsey keep running into each other, but he doesn’t make a significant move to help her until the day he witnesses her child being torn from her arms by a social worker. In the process of helping Lindsey, Wesley not only falls in love, but finds spontaneity and rediscovers his childhood dreams.

The story rings almost true. I’d like to believe that there is a corporate CEO out there would would tolerate the kind of attitude that Lindsey displays — I haven’t met one yet, but maybe. And some of the scenes are a little predictable — I saw the ending coming from the minute Wesley told Lindsey goodbye. In a way, that’s why Good Deeds is a good film, and should be a successful one. Like any fairy tale, there is just enough fantasy about it to keep us with one foot firmly planted in reality, while the rest is realistic enough that we can look wistfully on, thinking that it would be very nice if things did work just that way.

***** SPOILER WARNING *****

The lessons in this movie are myriad and well-told. Among them:

• Wesley’s parting words to his brother should go down in movie lore with Rhett Butler’s “Frankly, my dear….” They are that true, that moving, that pointed. And the lesson in them is just as important. If more people told the perpetual victims around them that they are sabotaging themselves (when it’s true), we might have a lot fewer perpetual victims clogging up the works for those who truly need help.
• Wesley and Natalie’s discussion when they realize that they don’t actually love each other and need to rethink their engagement is an amazingly mature, calm, and rational discussion for two people who are contemplating not only the dissolution of their own relationship, but the disappointment of both of their mothers, and the knowledge that the engagement reception is the next day and it’s going to be pretty awkward to announce that there’s not really anything to have a reception for.
• I found it inspiring to watch Lindsey’s moral bearing when Wesley tells her that he is engaged, and her refusal to become physically involved with him until he knows what he really wants and  until he is no longer bound to someone else.
• Lindsey’s continual challenge to Wesley to not judge her until he had a firm grip on “the real world” speaks volumes. And so does Lindsey’s realization that Wesley isn’t the cold, heartless jerk that she initially thought him to be. A man who has no children shouldn’t judge the actions of a woman who is doing her best to provide for her child. A man who has no idea how much a gallon of milk costs shouldn’t judge a person who is sleeping in her car because she lost her apartment. My real world and someone else’s may be poles apart — each of us needs to stop and think before we judge the other.

I enjoyed Good Deeds. I might even go see it again. But I will take a box of tissues with me if I do. The napkins from the concession stand are rather harsh on tearful eyes.

Before I settle into reviewing Red Tails, I must point out that I am not much of a war movie buff, and I really don’t like blood-and-guts flicks at all. So it was with some apprehension that I settled into the theatre seats this evening, on the opening night of this movie.

So what led a non-war-movie, non-blood-and-guts type gal to check out a movie about World War II fighter pilots? Well, the answer requires a little personal history.

In 2001 and 2002, I worked for the private pilots union that, at that time, represented the pilots who fly for FedEx Express. And while I worked there, I met a few of the former Tuskegee Airmen. And I was profoundly impressed by them. They were wonderful men. We had a few brief conversations about their planes and their experiences as I worked on some press releases for their upcoming demonstrations at a Memphis airshow. And I always wished I’d had more time to talk, to get to know them, to hear more at first-hand. So I was excited when I heard about this movie, and I’ve been looking forward to its release.

I was not disappointed. While the battle scenes were realistic and there were some gory moments, there was nothing excessive. The love scenes were handled with discretion. Even the language — and there is some because this is, after all, a film about soldiers in the middle of a war — is relatively mild. While there is some good-natured teasing of the most religious member of the squadron, it’s clearly not intended as slur against Christians.

The situation of the Tuskegee Airmen must, I think, have been far more difficult than it comes across in the movie. Racism was rampant, as black people were considered as having subhuman intelligence and as being fit only for the servant classes. The quote shown at the movie’s opening is a mild example of the sort of thing that passed for scientific opinion in that era.

But the movie’s strength is that it clearly shows the fighting spirit of these brave men, who rebelled against the bigotry that did not want to give them a chance and who risked their lives to prove that the black man was just as good as the white man. Red Tails shows the Tuskegee pilots earning the respect, first of their fellow American pilots, and then of the military brass. It’s not an easy fight or a bloodless one. But the easy, bloodless battles do not bring lasting victories. And the Tuskegee Airmen won lasting victories — first over the “jerries,” and then over bigotry in the land that they called home.

Red Tails, the movie, captures the strength, the spirit, and the determination of these American heroes who led the way for their brothers to be accepted as equals in a world that wanted to see them as inferiors.

I would love to give this book five stars. I really would. But I’m a professional editor, and whoever copyedited this book needs to give the publishers their money back. For example, in every single place where the author refers to the aisle of a supermarket, it’s an “isle.” And that’s not the only misspelling I noted. The indexing is just as bad. It’s VERY distracting and seriously detracts from what would have been an otherwise remarkable and outstanding book. (It also makes me worry about their attention to detail in more crucial areas, like the recipe measurements…) Note to demosHealth: If you need a good editor, call me.

Pet peeves aside, I LOVE this book. My family does not deal with the severe forms of epilepsy that the ketogenic diet is designed to treat, but my children and I all suffer from severe migraines and I have a glucose processing disorder, so we follow a higher fat, lower carbohydrate diet than most of the general population. I was curious to see what tips and tricks I could pick up from people for whom carbohydrate is, essentially, poison.

The recipes that I have tried have been delicious. The authors were successful in their attempt to  minimize carbohydrate content while maximizing flavour and visual appeal.  The sample letters for various community contacts who may be responsible for a child’s meals during time away from a regular caregiver will be an excellent resource for parents who need to communicate the severity of a seizure disorder to non-medical personnel. And the spaces for a family’s dietician to write in measurements as they work together to tweak recipes to a child’s individual needs will obviously be invaluable.

The ONLY drawback I see to this cookbook for non-keto families is that the recipes generally make only one serving, and all the measurements are in grams. I understand the reasons why, but non-keto shoppers should be aware that you’re going to have to do some math and some measurement conversions to make these recipes work for a family.

That said, I highly recommend this cookbook as a resource for families struggling with epilepsy disorders, glucose disorders, and gluten intolerance, as these recipes will be a godsend to all of them.

While there is some good information in here, I really was expecting better, especially as a I am a fan of Kathy Ireland. Being widely read in the field of parenting literature, perhaps I am jaded — or overexposed. Perhaps for a new mom of a younger generation, this book would be useful as a contemporary view of juggling the work / life / parenting balls.

But this book seemed, to me, to be a mere rehashing of the same advice that has been handed out for decades. Some of it works, some of the time. But by and large, this felt like just another repackaging of the usual trite ideas, this time with a famous person’s name and face on the cover.

The discovery of a new “favourite place” is sometimes a very odd circumstance, and Las Tortugas Deli Mexicana is one of my odder stories. It will also be a favourite place for a long time to come.

I overheard a conversation in the office one day between one of my bosses and one of our district managers. The manager was raving about this restaurant and how great the food was and how fabulous a salesman the owner was. A little while later, my boss came down the hall, and I asked him what place the manager had been so excited about, as I am always interested in good food, especially if it is combined with good service.

So my boss began to tell me about this little authentic Mexican eatery that didn’t put cheese on its tacos, didn’t use sour cream, and didn’t buy its food from Sysco. I was intrigued. Even more so when my boss told me that the owner manned the cash register himself, and had a perfect sales spiel about the place, and offered very warm, personal service. When my boss went in and asked “What’s good?” the owner had asked him very specific questions to determine what menu item was most likely to suit him. And my boss had, indeed, enjoyed the meal.

My boss also told me the entire spiel that the owner had given, and said that the manager had told him that she got the same spiel when she went in and said it was her first visit. At that point, another of my bosses walked by and said, “Deli Mexicana? Yes, my family and I eat there all the time. The food is great!”

So, my interest piqued, I decided to try this place. I had a bit of trouble finding it, as it’s a much smaller place than I had expected, and its location, the northern endcap of a small strip center on Germantown Parkway, is not very visible from the street (especially at 45 mph).

I walked in for a late weekday lunch, about 13:45. There were several people at tables, but I was the only one in line. A nice young man greeted me and asked me if it were my first visit. I replied in the affirmative, and was treated to the exact spiel that my boss had recited to me. I ordered the brisket tacos, and asked the young man to tell me about the agua fresca. I ordered a mango agua fresca after he described this refreshing beverage in very attractive terms. When I said that I needed it to go, the young man said that was a pity, as it would be so much nicer if I could stay.

The food took a reasonable amount of time, and I was able to watch it being prepared through a glass partition. I sipped my mango drink while waiting, and found it quite refreshing. Not too sweet, and not too thick.

When I returned to my office and opened my takeout box, I found four doubled tortillas, each with a generous helping of Neola Farms beef brisket, a sprinkle of chopped cilantro, and a slice of avocado. On the side were a wedge of lime, a heap of very finely shredded lettuce, a mound of obviously homemade tortilla chips, an invitingly chunky guacamole, a bright pico de gallo, and a green sauce which I did not recognise — but which I promptly fell in love with.

I decided to try the place again, this time with my mother in tow. My mom was rather an odd choice for this place, as she doesn’t care for avocado or cilantro, but she was willing to give my newest enthusiasm a try.

This time, we went at the height of lunch rush on Saturday, about 12:30. The place was packed. It was so busy that Mom did not get treated to the regular spiel, but we still got very highly personalized service. Mom ordered the brisket tacos (sans cilantro and avocado) and a mango agua fresca, and I ordered the fish tacos and a tamarindo agua fresca. The food was just as good as it had been on my first visit. But I didn’t get any guacamole with my meal, which was a slight disappointment.

While waiting for our order, we had noticed several interesting-looking dishes being served around us. So when I decided that I was going to order a bit of guac to finish off my tortilla chips, mom asked me to get her an elote. I had also noticed a fried cheese on the menu, so I decided to try one of those. As there was no line, I asked the young man to tell me about the horchata. He said I would have to try it — and proceeded to run to the cooler and prepare me a generous sample. It was quite tasty and sweet, so I got one for dessert.

The elote was wonderful: a hot cob of sweet corn on a stick, slathered with cheese, pepper, and mayonnaise. It sounds very strange, but it was really delicious. Also a delightful surprise was the chicharrones de queso (the fried cheese). I had expected several pieces of breaded and deep fried cheese, so I was not expecting an enormous tube of crisp cheese — not breaded and deep fried, but toasted, like the cheese that oozes out of a generously made grilled cheese sandwich and bubbles on the grill.

In light of two profoundly excellent experiences, with truly superior food and outstanding customer service, I wholeheartedly recommend Las Tortugas Deli Mexicana.

Glory Road is compilation of autobiographical sketches by ten prominent African-American pastors, focusing specifically on their journey from the traditional Black Church into Reform Theology, which is widely viewed as “white people’s religion.”

Some of these stories necessarily encompass the difficult faith journeys of  their congregations, as the pastor’s shift in theological base took them from the emotion-laden, social-gospel traditions of the African-American Protestant culture into the thought-provoking and deeply personal teachings of five-point Calvinism.

These ten journeys vary widely. There is the pastor who discovered his Reform beliefs when he enrolled in the wrong Bible college. And the pastor who came into Reform Theology through conversion from traditional African-American Christianity to Islam, then to renunciation of  all religion, and finally, through a series of “accidents,” to Reform doctrine. There is yet another pastor whose study of church history informed his gradual shift into Reform thinking.

But through all of these varied journeys, one thing is clear: God uses all things to work together to achieve His purpose. A miscarriage. A wife’s need to feel part of a community. A college scholarship. There is nothing that God cannot use to bring men to him.

For their depiction of the struggle and seeking of the human soul, these stories are worth reading. For their spiritual joy and theological explanation, they are worth re-reading. Many times. For anyone who wishes to spread the gospel of truth and grace to those in the African-American community, this book should be required reading. Glory Road clarifies and enumerates the deep difficulties faced by those steeped in the African-American religious tradition when they are confronted with the doctrines of Reform Theology, which can seem harsh and confrontational to a person who is accustomed to the gentleness and tolerance of the social gospel.

One of the most useful aspects of Glory Road is the appendix in which each author lists the books and teachers who were most influential in their faith journey. The autobiographical sketches inspire the reader to explore deeper; this source list enables the reader to act on that inspiration.

I had in mind a project for a novel which would begin in the usual manner … except that gradually the characters’ identities would begin to slip and to blur, and so would the geographical surroundings. …Only the style of the book would remain consistent …. gradually … the work would become more troubling … until the appalled readers, unable to understand what was happening … and also unable to stop reading, would watch the wholesale metastasization … the collapse … so that when they finally put the book down they are aware only of having been protagonists in a deep and violent dream whose sole purpose is their incurable unease. (pages 226-228)

It is not often that an author postpones his statement of purpose to the closing pages of his work, burying it within the work itself, rather than in a preface, foreword, or note from the author. But that is precisely what John Lanchester has done in this novel.

Habitual preface-skippers will miss out on essential information, as the “preface” is a note from the protagonist, not from the author. And it sets the stage for the tone of the rest of the book.

Tarquin Winot is the anti-heroic protagonist of this book — he is, in fact, so anti-heroic that he serves as both protagonist and antagonist. Winot is verbose, opinionated, patronizing, self-aggrandizing, and entirely too fond of himself. He is also faintly sinister, but the faintness of that impression steadily diminishes throughout the narrative.

(If you can call it that. If James Joyce or TS Eliot were to write a murder-mystery, this book is a good example of what would result. It’s a stream-of-consciousness, flashback-ridden nightmare of a story.)

Winot is presented as a gourmet and connoisseur — but not in a sympathetic way. He is a dark and worrying figure, and the disjointed stories of his earlier life increase the darkness and worry. What begins to emerge is a person whose life has been strangely surrounded by bizarre and inexplicable tragedies. And a person who seems to have both a morbid fascination with death and a suspicious knowledge of the intimate details of the tragedies that touch his life.

This is a hard book to read, and it was only sheer, teeth-gritting determination that got me through the first two chapters. And then I couldn’t stop reading, even though I wanted to. I needed to understand what was being hinted at. I needed to know the end, even though it was all-too-baldly foreshadowed. If you can work your way through the page-long periodic sentences with their frequent interruptions and asides, you will, as the author suggests, find yourself waking from “a deep and violent dream,” afflicted by “incurable unease.”

Here is a really creative re-telling of  the 1800s poem “Will you come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly.” The artwork (by DeTerlizzi) is fantastic…dark, but very detailed and full of forewarning of the fate that the little fly, dressed like a flapper of the ’20s, is sure to suffer if she succumbs to the blandishments of the sophisticated-looking spider. The artwork adds to the atmosphere of the book, as it is all black and white and eerie—almost “Addams Family” ghoulish.

The artwork is what really makes this book perfect for today’s youngsters. You see the Fly, dressed in her bright gossamer flapper dress (complete with fringe and long beads), flitting about with her flower-petal parasol, while half-resisting, half-toying with Spider’s invitation. You see the menacing Spider, very nattily dressed in his spats and pinstriped suit, gently encouraging and flattering the Fly into accepting his invitation. And all the while, in the background, you see the other victims of the Spider, ghostly beings doing their best to warn the Fly away. And, of course, the very background of the nursery with the big Victorian dollhouse — a perfect setting for the diabolical Spider and his nefarious plot against the Fly.

The end of the rhymed story gives the wonderful moral:

And now, dear little children, who may this story read,
To idle, silly, flattering words I pray you ne’er give heed:
Unto an evil counselor close heart and ear and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale of the Spider and the Fly.

This book has been all that I hoped for and more. The book, in a nutshell, basically says that to get ahead in life, in career, in everything, women need to stop acting like little girls.

Replete with examples from Ms. Frankel’s consulting clients, this book gives practical, no-holds-barred evaluations of such behaviours as feeding people at the office, working too hard, asking questions instead of making statements, and “asking permission.” That last was a revelation to me.

As Ms. Frankel points out, we are all raised in a society that says you should get proper approvals before taking a step—any step. But men learn when to ask and when to just go ahead. Men learn how to apply the rubric “It’s easier to get forgiveness than to get permission.” Ms. Frankel points out that children, not adults, ask for permission to do perfectly rational things. I had never considered how detrimental to my career the habit of asking permission had been. But I decided to give Ms. Frankel’s suggestions a try. They worked!

If you are feeling frustrated by the glass ceiling, if you feel stuck and can’t figure out why you can’t get further in your career ambitions (and if you’re a female), this book is definitely worth the investment. It opened my eyes to things I did that I never even thought about, things that presented an image of an incompetent child—not a competent, composed, and capable woman. My image is now improving, and yours can too.

For the serious cook who doesn’t want to waste the tiniest morsel of good food, this book is a treasure-trove. For the capable cook who needs to stretch his food budget as far as possible, this book is a godsend. For the neophyte cook who wants to learn to make the most of everything in his kitchen, this book is the perfect text.

Though it is not set up like a traditional cookbook, with lists of ingredients and a clear “method” section, “Cooking for All It’s Worth” will help cooks at every level of expertise hone their skills in extracting the last bit of goodness out of everything they touch.

Paramount is the idea of not wasting food. Jacobs tells how to make magic out of bones, vegetable peelings, and the tail ends of bits of meat. He describes the process of evaluating “leftovers” for their potential in future meals — usually recreated into something more wonderful than the dish they came from.

Don’t throw away those bread crusts and bits of bread leftover after a party! Dry them and process them for a supply of breadcrumbs to use in any one of a thousand recipes. Don’t discard the heeltaps of wine … combine them and save them in the fridge for marinades or other inventive uses.

Jacobs’s purpose is to teach us not to view each meal as a separate entity, with discrete ingredients bearing no relation to any other meal created that day or week, but to instead make use of “connective cookery” — that mindset that causes us to look at the remains of a roast chicken and decide what marvelous creations it can yield before it has given all that it has. If you save those bones and bits instead of tossing them in the trash, six or seven additional meals might spring from that one chicken carcass.

In a day when money is tight and people want to stretch every dollar, this book is a wonderful guide to returning to the days when nothing was wasted — the days of grandma’s stockpot simmering on the stove and making every morsel count. The days of lavish frugality. This book will save you time and money if you only follow a fraction of the excellent advice and suggestions contained within its covers.